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Forbes has released their 30 Under 30 2021 list. The list celebrates the brightest entrepreneurs and professionals in a variety of industries and categories, from games to healthcare, from energy to entertainment, all under the age of 30. Among this year's honorees are a number of NYU entrepreneurs who are disrupting their industries and causing real change. Check out the list below, and help us celebrate our incredible entrepreneurship community!
NYU Founders: 30 Under 30
Alyssa Petersel (Silver '17)
Occupation: Founder, My Wellbeing
Category: Consumer Technology
Alyssa Petersel is the founder and CEO of MyWellbeing, a platform that connects people to therapists. She herself is a licensed social worker. The company, based in New York City, has received $1 million in funding and reports that it has more than 100,000 customers. Learn more about Alyssa.
Hersh Patel (Stern '13)
Occupation: Founder, Hindsight
Category: Media
Hersh Patel cofounded Hindsight in 2017 to help publications figure out how to effectively place ads as cookie-tracking is phased out by the major internet browsers. Its software is used by sites like FOCO and FanDuel to place ads based on the content of the article, rather than the reader's data history. With Patel as CEO, Hindsight has raised $1 million. Learn more about Hersh.
Evan Moskal (Tandon '16)
Occupation: Co-founder, Courant
Category: Consumer Technology
Evan Moskal co-founded Courant, which makes design-driven wireless chargers. The New York-based company has been generating revenue since its inception and plans to expand into international markets this year. Courant is already working with brands like West Elm, Bloomingdales and SoHo House. Learn more about Evan.
Amanda McLoughlin (CAS '14)
Occupation: Founder, Multitude
Category: Media
Amanda McLoughlin quit her job in finance in 2018 and became CEO of Multitude, an independent podcast collective and production company based in Brooklyn. Multitude's shows, with topics ranging from sports to spirits to Harry Potter, are downloaded more than two million times monthly. Learn more about Amanda.
Shelby Christie (Steinhardt '22)
Occupation: Founder, Shelby Ivey Christie
Category: Art & Style
Shelby Ivey Christie is a fashion and costume history who focuses on Black fashion history. She has been featured in Business Insider, Dazed, CFDA, Teen Vogue and NBC for her work. She's also on the executive board of the Black in Fashion Council and the Black Fashion Fair. She was named to the Dazed 100 in 2020. Learn more about Shelby.
Gabriela Chapa (SPS)
Occupation: Co-founder, Louve
Category: Consumer Technology
Gabriela Chapa was tired of hotels that weren't optimized for women. In 2019 she co-founded Louve, a travel accommodation service for women. The work from anywhere phenomenon spurred bookings from Hong Kong to Hawaii. Gabriela also consults on a $750 million revitalization program for Chicago's Southside. Learn more about Gabriela.
Eric Sze (SPS '15) & Andy Chuang (Steinhardt '17)
Occupation: Co-founders, 886
Category: Food & Drink
On a rowdy corner of St. Marks Place, 886 is the neon accented watering hole where Taiwanese comfort food comes alive in New York City. Taiwanese natives Eric Sze and Andy Chuang opened the doors in 2018, with Sze running the kitchen and Chuang at the front of house. 886 was one of the first restaurants in New York City to set-up a meal donation system for frontline healthcare workers during some of the pandemic's darkest days in the spring of 2020. From March to May, 886 raised $130,000 to purchase more than 10,000 pre-packaged meals from struggling restaurants to donate to more than 30 hospitals and shelters. Learn more about Eric & Andy.
Jack DeFuria (Gallatin '19)
Occupation: Co-founder, Parade
Category: Retail & E-commerce
Jack co-founded Parade in 2018 to offer an alternative that wasn't so big on sex appeal: a line of fun, colorful underwear that comes in inclusive sizes. The Gen Z-friendly brand's super soft underwear is made from 85% recycled plastic and compostable packaging made from corn starch. To date, the New York company has sold 650,000 pairs of underwear and is on track to generate $10 million in revenue in 2020. It has raised $8 million from traditional VC shops and celebrities including Shakira and Karlie Kloss. Learn more about Jack & Cami.
Myriam Sbeiti (Tandon '18) & Daniela Blanco (Tandon PhD '21)
Occupation: Co-founders, Sunthetics
Category: Energy
Sunthetics is developing the first generation of smart electrochemical equipment that supports easy-to-use electrochemical reactors. This technology will help enable the chemical industry to move away from fossil-fuel reliant, energy-intensive reactions towards electrical, renewable and resource-efficient processes. The startups A.I.-supported equipment saves time and effort in the creation of previously inaccessible specialty chemicals and in identifying the "optimal point" for conducting multi-variable electrochemical reactions. Sunthetics' vision is to electrify the chemical industry. Learn more about Myriam & Daniela.
Other NYU Alumni: 30 Under 30
Terri Burns (CAS '16)
Occupation: Partner, GV
Category: Venture Capital
Burns is the youngest investment partner in GV history, where she led investments in HAGS and Locker Room and has attended board meetings for Lambda School for two years. Until recently, she sat on the board of the nonprofit Brave Initiatives, which teaches coding skills to girls from underserved geographic and economic communities. She has a degree in computer science from the NYU Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and was previously an associate product manager at Twitter, where she worked on the home timeline team. Learn more about Terri.
Audrey Zhang (Medicine '20)
Occupation: Resident Physician
Category: Healthcare
Zhang is a resident physician at Duke University who researches how regulators, like the Food and Drug Administration, make decisions about drug approvals. She recently authored a study which found that FDA approvals of new drugs are based on fewer, less rigorous, but longer trials compared to two decades ago. Learn more about Audrey.
Julian Swirsky (Gallatin '18)
Occupation: SVP of A&R, Republic Records
Category: Music
This LA-native has produced for Justin Bieber, Nicole Scherzinger of The Pussy Cat Dolls, Bow Wow and more. He signed chart-topping rising stars Conan Gray and Lil Tecca to Republic Records after finishing his studies at NYU Gallatin. Learn more about Julian.
Camila Mendes (Tisch '16)
Occupation: Actor
Category: Hollywood & Entertainment
A graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts, Mendes' first acting job was in an Ikea commercial, but she's come a long way. Since 2016, she's starred on The CW's hit series "Riverdale," and last year made her film debut in "The New Romantic." This year, she had starring roles in the Netflix film "Dangerous Lies" and critically acclaimed romantic comedy "Palm Springs." Learn more about Camila.
Lu Li (Steinhardt)
Occupation: General Manager of Global Strategy, Indiegogo
Category: Marketing & Advertising
Li works on cross-border growth initiatives to bring Chinese tech to the U.S. market. Since joining in 2017, she's been a bridge between U.S. and Chinese marketing teams, founded Indiegogo's first in-house marketing agency for China-based entrepreneurs, and created a program that's helped entrepreneurs raise $260 million in funds. Learn more about Lu.
Elana Knoller (Gallatin '14)
Occupation: Chief Product Officer, Better.com
Category: Finance
After a stint in commodities at Goldman Sachs, Knoller joined fintech mortgage lender Better.com in 2017. She launched its business-to-business division, landing partnerships with Tesla, Ally Bank and American Express. Those deals now make up nearly 50% of Better's revenue. Today Knoller manages the product, design, strategy and growth teams, overseeing 95 people. She has led Better's growth strategy for three years, helping it go from $90,000 in monthly revenue to $90 million today. Learn more about Elana.
Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. (Tisch '16)
Occupation: Artist
Category: Art & Style
This photographer focuses on the domestic sphere with faces of subjects obscured to focus on the interior lives of individuals. He’s been praised for this work as he's been featured on the Lit List: Photographers to Watch, Exhibit, and Hire (2020), won a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2019) and was named to the Foundwork Artist Prize shortlist (2019) and was a New York Times Portfolio Review Participant (2016). Learn more about Elliott.
Talia Bender (Steinhardt '14)
Occupation: President, The Female Quotient
Category: Marketing & Advertising
Talia Bender serves as president of The Female Quotient, a company aimed at advancing equality in the workplace that has fostered shifts within the marketing and advertising industry. She oversees programming at more than 60 major annual events featuring over 5,000 leaders, and has developed collaborations with organizations including the Ad Council, Black Girls Code and Cannes Lions See It Be It. Learn more about Talia.
Sumeet Gajri (Stern '13)
Occupation: Managing Partner, Original Capital
Category: Venture Capital
When Gajri founded Original Capital in 2016, the investor from a working-class Scottish background dipped into his life savings, borrowed hundreds of thousands from online lenders and maxed out his credit cards. But after investing $17 million over three and a half years and seeing a better than 4x gross return on capital, Gajri's upscaled, closing $25 million for his new fund that started investing in September 2020. Learn more about Sumeet.
